The Internet makes it easy to compare prices for a lot of things — you can shop around for the best deal on shoes, or research what salary you should be asking for in a job interview. Now, it’s also helping people make sure they’re not getting ripped off on the black market.
PriceofWeed.com, a website that asks people to anonymously submit the cost of marijuana they purchase in their area, has collected a lot of data on the street price of both legal and illegal marijuana around the U.S. over the last few years.
According to the site, the average price for an ounce of marijuana in the U.S. is now $286.35. Marijuana is now significantly cheaper throughout most of the West, as well as Florida and Mississippi. It remains the priciest in Virginia, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Hampshire and Vermont.
The reasons for price trends aren’t crystal clear, since marijuana is still illegal in many places (including federally), and there isn’t a lot of data on growing and distribution. However, the price trends appear related to the supply of marijuana in the U.S., which is in turn partly linked to state-by-state legalization and decriminalization of the drug.
Currently, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Alaska and Washington D.C. have all legalized recreational marijuana, and medical marijuana is legal in roughly two dozen more states. Although states that have legalized marijuana often add hefty taxes, the increase in supply that comes with legalization tends to drive down the price in those areas anyway. Whether it’s legal weed or street weed, the presence of increased supply of both medical and recreational marijuana around the U.S. is pushing the prices down.
Floating Sheep, a blog that created a map of marijuana prices using PriceofWeed. com data in 2011, also attributed the price differences to variations in supply. The blog noted the lower prices near areas with a lot of marijuana production, including Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt County in California — a huge marijuana-growing area known as the “Emerald Triangle” — as well as Kentucky and Tennessee.
One mystery is the District of Columbia, where prices remain high despite the (sort-of) legalization in February. The high price could have to do with a lack of officially sanctioned sales. The District’s rule change made marijuana legal, but prohibited pot shops, open-air smoking or exchanging of marijuana for money, though barter is okay.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A group of wealthy investors is betting tens of millions of dollars on a ballot initiative that could net them billions if Buckeye State voters decide this November to legalize marijuana – in a very particular way, reports The Center for Public Integrity and Al Jazeera’s America Tonight.

They tracked the story of Ohio’s unique marijuana ballot initiative from its Capitol to its cornfields to see if voters are aware of the fine print and if they care. The article includes a excellent question-and-answer session with one of the investors in the initiative.

Across the state, blue-shirted workers for the ResponsibleOhio political action committee have been collecting voters’ signatures – gathering more than 550,000 so far – in hopes of qualifying their medical and recreational legalization effort for the November ballot.

If they succeed and voters pass the measure, Ohio could become the fifth state to legalize recreational use of the drug and the investors in the 10 limited liability companies backing ResponsibleOhio’s $20 million budget – massive for a single ballot initiative in any state – stand to have first crack at legally growing marijuana in a state with 11.6 million residents.

But ResponsibleOhio’s proposal, which would essentially bake the LLCs’ business model into the state Constitution, has raised hackles from some people who favor other efforts to legalize pot.

n a column for High Times, Jon Gettman, a former national director for NORML, said Mooney’s group is trying to use Ohio’s government to advance private interests and use criminal law to support a constitutionally mandated monopoly.

“ResponsibleOhio argues that they are not establishing a monopoly because their 10 grow facilities will have to ‘compete with each other on price and quality, which is the exact opposite of a monopoly. There is no coordination between them, they will be trying to make money by selling the best goods at the best prices to stores, dispensaries and manufacturers,'” Gettman wrote. “The proper description, then, is oligopoly – the control of a closed market by a few firms, commonly referred to as a cartel.”

DOVER, Del. —Delaware last week became the 20th state, along with the District of Columbia, to decriminalize or legalize simple marijuana possession.

Gov. Jack Markell signed legislation Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana in Delaware.

Markell signed the bill privately in the presence of its primary sponsors shortly after it passed the Democrat-controlled Senate on a straight party line vote.

The legislation, which takes effect in December, makes adult possession of an ounce or less a civil offense punishable by a fine of $100, rather than a crime, reports The Cannabist and Associated Press.

“The governor remains committed to reducing the number of people entering the criminal justice system and refocusing resources where they are needed most,” a Markell spokeswoman said in a prepared statement.

The measure also received no Republican support when it passed the Democrat-led House earlier this month.

While there are no other legalization or decriminalization bills pending in state legislatures this year, a number of ballot measures could soon push the marijuana issue to the forefront in Ohio, Michigan and California, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Ohioans to End Prohibition, a pro-marijuana group, has drafted a bill called the Cannabis Control Amendment that would legalize the drug by way of a ballot initiative next year. The measure will likely draw strong opposition from Republican Gov. John Kasich, who is believed to have aspirations of joining the ever-widening field of candidates chasing the Republican presidential nomination.

Michigan Democrats are attempting to push a similar ballot measure. And legalization is also expected to be put to a popular vote in California next year. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has already come out in support of it.

Marc Paskin, who goes by the name Gary Ganja, on the air in their new studio in Denver, June 12, 2015. In May, Paskin moved to Denver, bought a radio station for $875,000 and christened it Smokin 94.1, declaring it the state’s only pot-themed FM station. (Matthew Staver/The New York Times)

DENVER — Some people who prosper in life choose to spend their hard-earned millions on private planes. Some buy a vineyard in Napa to indulge a love of wine. Some collect showpiece cars, or fulfill a dream of hiking Mount Everest.

Marc Paskin bought a radio station in Colorado and converted it to a marijuana-themed format.

“I was going to retire, and then I said: Wait a minute, that’s boring,” said Mr. Paskin, 66, a millionaire who made his money in real estate and has never been known as boring. In Hawaii, where he lived for a long time, he starred in a reality television show called “Uncle Kokua” in which he drove around Oahu in a van and distributed money to people in need. After his wife died, he searched for a girlfriend using a San Diego billboard. (It worked.)

And in May, he moved to Denver, bought a radio station for $875,000 and christened it Smokin 94.1, declaring it the state’s only pot-themed FM station. Yes, the Grateful Dead get heavy airplay, as do the Rolling Stones and several reggae artists. In addition to classic rock and music to get stoned by, the station plays marijuana-laced comedy bits. It made its debut on June 1.

“This is my million-dollar toy,” Mr. Paskin said.

He is not just the owner but also the on-air talent: As Gary Ganja, he is the regular afternoon D.J. In the studio, he wears flip-flops, a Bob Marley wig and a Rolex. At the mixing board, though, he’s cannabis-free. “I want to pay attention,” he said, “with all those controls and everything.”

Comedy bits include “Dead People Who Smoke Pot.” (Mr. Paskin to a fake James Brown: “James, how are things in that coffin?” Fake James Brown: “I smoke weed every day. I smoked it by the pound. That’s why I was so hot on stage.”)

“Stoner Dating Game” is a call-in stunt. And “Presidents on Weed” features phony conversations with leaders who have admitted to trying marijuana.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul rattled off numbers for the mostly white, mostly older crowd of Maryland Republicans, explaining how blacks are arrested for marijuana offenses in Baltimore at a higher rate than whites.

“If you do surveys, the statistics are pretty close between black and white marijuana use,” the Republican presidential hopeful said at a state party fundraiser last week. “I’m not saying it’s racism. Many of the officials [in Baltimore] are black. So it’s not racism. But something is wrong with the war on drugs when we decide to lock people up for five, 10, 15 years for making mistakes.”

The crowd broke into applause.

As the crime rate falls and the number of high-profile cases in which police officers are accused of racial bias escalates, Republicans increasingly are joining what had long been a Democratic conversation: how to reduce the size of the prison population and help ex-offenders turn their lives around.

In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan this year became the latest Republican state leader to back bills intended to reduce recidivism and help ex-offenders find jobs. And while Hogan also vetoed a bill that would have expanded felon voting rights, advocates say he and other Republicans have shown a willingness to rethink long-held theories about how to reduce crime.

“There’s a change in climate in criminal justice reform,” said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a national advocacy group that has worked to change the way Americans view crime and punishment.

The shift by Republicans is largely motivated by costs, Democrats say. Fiscally conservative Republicans see prison expenses as a drain on strained budgets and are starting to work with Democrats to find less costly approaches.

The declining crime rate, Mauer said, has made the debate “less emotional and less political” for lawmakers.

In Alabama, where prison crowding was so severe that the federal government threatened to intervene, Republican Gov. Robert Bentley approved a measure that reduces penalties for some nonviolent property and drug crimes.

Hogan signed a bill to create the Justice Reinvestment Coordinating Council, which will search for ways to reduce spending on corrections. The council will be led by Christopher Shank, a former Republican state senator who directs the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention.

“Taking a tough stance on crime isn’t just about incarceration,” Hogan said in a statement offering his support for the bill during the legislative session. He said Maryland needed to “strike a balance and explore better, smarter options” to locking people up.

Hogan also signed a bill that allows ex-offenders to shield court and police records on certain offenses, to make it easier for them to obtain employment.

The governor allowed two bills that change sentencing guidelines to be enacted without his signature. One repeals mandatory-minimum sentencing for some offenses and gives judges greater discretion over meting out punishment. The other allows offenders to expunge certain crimes from their records.

But Hogan vetoed two criminal justice bills. One would have permitted ex-offenders to vote while on parole or probation; the other would have decriminalized drug paraphernalia such as bongs and pipes.

Mauer said the voting-rights veto showed a disconnect in Hogan’s thinking about the links among criminal justice policy, racial and economic inequality, and the plight of urban communities. “It is disappointing,” Mauer said. “Especially to do it at this moment, with all the developments in Baltimore. It’s not a very constructive message to send to people.” READ MORE »

While the Florida legislature has repeatedly declined to consider medical marijuana legalization proposals, communities in densely populated southeast Florida are lighting up proposals of their own to decriminalize possession of consumer-sized portions of the plant.

News outlets including the two leading establishment news sources, the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel and the Miami Herald are producing articles about decriminalization developments on a near-daily basis.

This week, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said he supports a proposal to make possession of small amounts of pot a civil infraction rather than a criminal charge.

Broward County commissioners– whose turf includes are expected to explore the proposition of making possession of 20 grams or less a crime punishable by a $100 fine or two-day stay in jail. Officers would retain the authority to charge such a case as criminal, but would be able to choose the civil infraction route.

Miami-Dade commissioners are expected to vote on a parallel plan June 30. Miami Beach has already given preliminary approval to a similar proposal.

Possessing misdemeanor amounts of marijuana in Miami-Dade County could bring a $100 fine instead of a criminal charge under the proposal backed by police brass, the Miami Herald reports.

The ordinance would let officers issue a civil citation to someone carrying less than 20 grams of marijuana, about two-thirds of an ounce. That’s about how much would fit in a sandwich bag — or enough to produce about three dozen joints.

“It allows us to give someone a break,” said Miami-Dade commissioner Sally Heyman. “It doesn’t destroy somebody’s life because they smoked a joint at a concert, or had a pipe in their pocket.”

Meanwhile, Hallandale Beach may be the first city in Broward County to embrace a relaxed law. City commissioner Keith London says he has been following a similar push by elected leaders in Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County to treat misdemeanor possession of marijuana as a civil offense with a $100 fine.

“If it’s good enough for Miami Beach, why isn’t it good enough for Hallandale?” London asked before pitching the idea to commissioners during a City Hall meeting Monday evening.

“These aren’t dealers,” London said. “This doesn’t change state law in any form. But it gives some discretion to the police department.”

During this spring’s legislative session in Tallahassee, two Republican-sponsored bills were filed, each proposing a comprehensive yet highly restricted plan to allow for the use of medical marijuana. Yet the legislature failed to allow either bill to be considered by a committee, the typical first step in getting a bill onto the floor of the full House or Senate for a vote. The legislature found itself unable to even pass a set of proposed improvements on the Florida Compassionate Care Act of 2014, which set up a system for growing and processing non-euphoric cannabis into an extract to help epileptic patients control their seizures. Only now is the state beginning to take applications for five licenses.

A voter initiative last year garnered 58 percent of the vote, but fell short of the 60 percent approval required for constitutional changes. This week, United for Care — the political group behind last year’s proposal — started hiring petition-gatherers to make sure the issue will reappear on the November 2016 ballot.

TALLAHASSEE — Last week, Orlando trial lawyer John Morgan wrote a $150,000 check to jump-start an effort to get a medical-marijuana initiative back on the ballot in 2016.

This week, United for Care — the political group behind the proposal — started hiring petition-gatherers to ensure the group doesn’t get caught playing catch-up again.

Garnering more than 58 percent of the vote last November, a medical-marijuana initiative fell just short of the 60 percent approval required for constitutional changes. Morgan, who spent at least $5 million on the effort last year, is determined to give voters another stab at a revised version. Supporters hope heavier voter turnout for the presidential election will push the pot initiative above the 60 percent threshold.

United for Care campaign manager Ben Pollara said he thinks the group will need about $3 million to cover the costs of professional petition-gatherers and legal fees to get the initiative on the ballot. Pollara said he plans to have the paid workers fanned out statewide by July 1.

Pollara needs to turn in 683,149 valid petition signatures to the Department of State by Feb. 1 to get on the ballot. First, the group has to submit 10 percent of those petitions to the Florida Supreme Court to trigger a review of the revamped initiative, now entitled “Use of Medical Marijuana for Debilitating Conditions.”

United for Care spent more than $4.5 million last year on legal fees, including the Supreme Court vetting of the proposal. Pollara anticipates a smaller legal tab for the 2016 initiative, as the court already approved last year’s measure and the new version has been tweaked to accommodate concerns of the justices and opponents.

But Pollara estimates his organization will have to spend up to another $7 million on advertising. Last year, an opposition group called the Drug Free Florida Committee collected more than $6 million — including $5.5 million from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson — to fight the measure.

“We don’t need to out-communicate the opposition. We don’t even need to match the opposition. But we do need to get out our message,” Pollara said Thursday.

Morgan pledged “to do whatever it takes to put medical marijuana back to the people of Florida” in a video distributed last week. Supporters can’t rely on the Legislature to legalize marijuana for sick patients, Morgan said.

“Listen, they ignored us last time. But they won’t be able to ignore us next time,” he said.

Around the state, others are tweaking business plans and license applications, evaluating soil and lighting systems and lining up warehouse space. “Our business plan is ready … We have positions filled and everything,” said a Halifax-area man who is part of a group which plans to apply for a license, and who said he wasn’t ready to be publicly identified.

For years the United States worried about drugs crossing our borders from other countries, now it seems other countries are crossing our border to get into our cannabis, reports Forbes magazine.

While most believe that the U.S. is conservative in its approach to marijuana, the recent push for legalization has suddenly thrust America’s marketplace into a cannabis leadership position.

The potential for the U.S. market is so big, that companies from other countries want in. Israel wants in on the action in New York. Marijuana is illegal in the country, but in a twist, the country is a world leader on its research into the medical uses of marijuana.

Tikun Olam, which means ‘healing the world’ in Hebrew, is the only large-scale industrial producer of cannabis in Israel and operates under a license from the Israel Ministry of Health. Tikun Olam announced that it was partnering with Compassionate Care Center of New York and applying to be a Registered Organization under New York’s Compassionate Care Act.

The National Cannabis Industry Association, the nation’s largest cannabis trade group, will hold its second annual national conference, the Cannabis Business Summit and Expo, from June 29 through July 1 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.

The Summit will offer cannabis business leaders three days of in-depth discussions and workshops, exploring business best practices, cutting-edge technological advances, and marijuana policy developments on both the state and federal levels. Three Members of Congress – Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) – are confirmed to participate in the Summit or the popular Cannabis Carnival benefit concert taking place on June 30.

The Cannabis Business Summit is positioned for business owners and operators across multiple verticals in the cannabis industry. Several topic-oriented tracks will give attendees the opportunity to focus on their area of expertise. Tracks offered include: Running Your Cannabusiness; Cultivation and Processing; Money Matters: Finance, Accounting and Insurance; and The Law, Policy and Reform; as well as Emerging Topics offering attendees an open forum to discuss industry updates and trends. Featured educational sessions will highlight some of the industry’s leading pioneers and innovators.

More information about the Cannabis Business Summit, including a full list of speakers and a detailed agenda, can be found at CannabisBusinessSummit.com.

Media passes for the Cannabis Business Summit may be requested by emailing communications@thecannabisindustry.org. Please include the full name of the individual seeking a pass, the media outlet represented, and an email address and phone number where he or she can be reached. While NCIA will make every effort to honor legitimate requests, capacity is limited, so passes are not guaranteed.
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